By Lisa MacFarlane, Canwest News Service

Originally published: May 20, 2010

Before I drove the Tesla Roadster Sport, I had just ended a lovesick week with a hot and sweaty Porsche 911 Turbo. Tough competition.

But when Tesla Motors goes public, I might pick up a few shares.

With a tip of the hat to its namesake Nikola Tesla, (the Serbian physicist and electrical engineer who invented the electric motor), I sank into a small but comfy Lotus-esque style cockpit, turned the ignition key, and pressed D for drive.

Like the 911, the Telsa Roadster Sport is capable of pinning your head to the head-rest, as it stealthily manages 0-100 km/h in 3.7 seconds. Unlike the 911, Tesla provides a soothingly quiet, guilt-free blast on the highway. Ripping across the Lions Gate Bridge, top down – with no noise other than the whirr of the tires on pavement – was a unique sensation. It felt good. Really good. The steering was super-tight, and with no engine noise, it was rather like operating a driving game in a BC Ferry arcade (only way better). Interestingly, as soon as you take your foot off the accelerator, it’s like popping a parachute on a F-18, as the Telsa immediately slows when the regenerative braking kicks in. I barely had to touch the brakes because the car came to a natural stop at each red light. A computer monitors the batteries, lets the driver know what range is left and amusingly, how many barrels of oil have been saved as the kilometres rack up.

There are two models currently available: the regular and the sport. I was driving the sport version, which is faster by .2 seconds from 0-100 km/h an hour. The Tesla body is made up almost entirely of carbon fibre wrapped around an aluminum chassis. Currently Lotus moulds the carbon body panels and the aluminum monocoque chassis specifically for Tesla, which explains why it looks a bit like a cousin to the Elise.

In profile, it’s an Elise and 914 mash-up. The car is built just outside San Francisco in Menlo Park, California, where operators are standing by to take your order. Two Teslas, soon to be parked in Vancouverite’s driveways, arrive this month. It’s difficult to fault a good looking, pioneering, first-to-the-party car like the Tesla, however the cabin fit and finish could be improved. A bit of sloppy leather stitching and creasing was easy to spot. If I were paying more than a hundred grand for a new car, I’d expect the interior not to feel home baked.

Fully charged, Tesla has a range of 380 kms; a considerable distance. To put it in perspective, that is like driving from Vancouver to Kamloops. Or, from Vancouver to Whistler and back, and then back up to Whistler again after you call in sick on Monday morning due to a late spring snowfall report. The Tesla can be fully charge in as little as 3.5 hours using a 240-volt home charger ($2,000 option). Using an extension cord through your mum’s kitchen window, and plugging it in next to her toaster will take over a day, but works too.

Tesla Motors spokesperson Khobi Brooklyn drove up from Seattle to Vancouver to meet me with a quarter charge still left in the ‘tank’. Khobi opened the rear trunk to show me the battery casing. I asked how the Telsa managed to go so far in comparison to a golf cart.

"It is all in the architecture," she explained. "Basically the car runs on 6,831 carefully packed, powerful lithium ion laptop batteries kept cool by a liquid coolant system."

In the city of Vancouver, Mayor Gregor Robertson is determined to make the city the greenest in North America by 2020. Downtown by the new grass-roofed waterfront convention centre and the Shaw Tower, are a series of parking meters that include charging stations for electric cars. These AC outlets are a signal that electric wheels are coming to a street near you. Currently rolling off the assembly line are the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, Tesla (and with luck the sporty Fiskar Karma, which will compete with Tesla).

So who does the Tesla Roadster appeal to? If you’re like me and your heart is one part earth-friendly and one part high performance, this may be your best ride yet. It’s for Prius drivers who wish they were driving a Porsche and vice-versa.

Back on my test drive, in what would have normally been a frustrating exercise in patience (and fuel wastage), I was suddenly stopped in traffic on the Upper Levels highway due to a police incident (according to AM730 – Tesla comes with a basic stereo). With a Range Rover chugging away to my port side, Tesla and I sat, emitting no pollution, while enjoying the sunshine, quietly awaiting an opening where we could dust a few noisy sports cars.